Georgia school shooting suspect Colt Gray’s broken home life revealed

Details of baby-faced school shooting suspect Colt Gray’s fractured home life have been revealed.

Colt Gray, the baby-face Georgia school shooting suspect who is charged with murdering two classmates and two teachers, grew up in a broken and neglectful home, which police and child services visited on a regular basis, a former neighbour and landlord have revealed.

His mother, Marcee, 43, has a lengthy rap sheet with drug and domestic violence arrests. And his father Colin, 54, allegedly bought his troubled son an AR-15 rifle for Christmas — and now faces charges of his own for supplying the weapon used in the shooting.

Lauren Vickers, who lived next-door to the Grays in Jefferson, Georgia, said there were “problems immediately” when the Grays and their three children moved into the well-manicured neighborhood 60 miles east of Atlanta in 2022.

“There were nights where the mom would lock him and his sister out the house. And they would be banging on the back door, just screaming like ‘Mom! mom! mom!’ and crying. It was absolutely devastating,” she said.

Colt Gray’s mother Marcee Gray has a long criminal record.

Colt Gray.

Vickers said that sometimes the youngest child would come to her back yard asking for food.

“No clean clothes, I’m not exaggerating.”

“It was constant abuse,” she said. “It’s very, very sad.”

Gray’s maternal grandfather told CNN Thursday night that he was “just a good kid” who “lived in an environment that was hostile.”

“His dad beat up on him, I mean, I’m not talking about physical, but screaming and hollering, and he did the same thing to my daughter,” Charles Polhamus said, adding that the boy did not show any outward anger issues but was affected by his upbringing.

Now, investigators seeking to understand the suspect’s motive are looking into his family’s previous contacts with the state’s child protective services agency, the GBI director said Wednesday.

The gun Colt allegedly used was pictured at the school.

Colin Gray, the boy’s father, has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced on Thursday.

Colt Gray, a student at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, is accused of killing two fellow students and two teachers with an AR-style rifle on Wednesday.

The shooting also left nine people in hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

“These charges stem from Mr Gray knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon,” a GBI spokesman told reporters.

“This is a very difficult time, as we know, for students and parents. I know ... students and parents here in this county and around this state are afraid.”

 Colin told investigators that he purchased the gun allegedly used in the shooting as a Christmas gift for his son last December, two law enforcement sources told CNN.

The source added the AR-15-style rifle was purchased at a local gun store last year.

The gift was purchased months after the FBI first investigated Colt for school shooting threats.

The GBI spokesman said there had been incidents of students at other schools in Georgia making threats on Thursday.

The father of a 14-year-old who allegedly shot four people dead at a school in the US this week has been arrested and charged.

“In each of these incidents, police, law enforcement took charges, they made arrests, acted very swiftly, as we take incidents like this very seriously across this state,” he said.

The arrest of his father comes after a family member leapt to Colt’s defence in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

His aunt, Annie Polhamus Brown, told The Washington Post that her nephew was struggling with his mental health, and was “begging for help from everybody around him”.

She added that “the adults around him failed him”.

Ms Brown did not elaborate on the specifics of Gray’s mental health struggles.

he sheriff’s office subsequently released a mugshot.

Earlier, in since-deleted Facebook posts, Ms Brown was more strident.

“Just check yourself before you speak about a child that never asked to deal with the bulls*** he saw on a daily basis,” she wrote in one such post.

“They are charging my 14-year-old nephew as an adult, for murder. Y’all ready to see Polhamus blood in full throttle? Nah, I wouldn’t be either.”

In another post, she said: “I am not scared, I will not back down.”

“I will not disrespect other parents and families that are dealing with this tragedy on the opposite end. They DID NOT DESERVE THIS!!!!

“I WILL NOT do anything but humbly support the families involved in this incident who did not ask to be participants!!!!

“With that said, I WILL NOT leave my nephew standing alone!!!! When Uvalde happened, I told my own children that ‘only hurt people hurt people’.”

The 2022 shooting in Uvalde, Texas, saw an 18-year-old former student of Robb Elementary School kill 19 students and two teachers. The child victims were all 11 years old or younger.

The four Georgia victims, from top left to bottom right: Mason Schermerhorn, 14, Christian Angulo, 14, Christina Irimie, 53 and Richard Aspinwall, 39.

“I did EVERYTHING I COULD TO FIGHT FOR MY NEPHEW!!!!!! AND MY NIECE!!!!!! AND MY OTHER NEPHEW!!!!!!” Ms Brown continued.

“Y’all can go ahead and play the blame game all you want, but THE FAMILIES affected by my nephew’s actions deserve all the attention now!!!!!!

“I will take care of my nephew and what he needs on this side - just check yourself before you speak about a child.”

A commenter, Sonya Chambliss, said she had “taught Colt” and knew “firsthand he dealt with so much”.

“I love him and will be thinking about him and your family as you go through this tragedy! Such a sweet boy,” Ms Chambliss wrote.

Colt’s dark history

Colt had been brought to the FBI’s attention more than a year ago after allegedly threatening to commit a school shooting, the agency has said.

He was taken into custody after Wednesday’s shooting and will be tried as an adult on murder charges, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations said.

“Our school resource officer engaged him,” county sheriff Jud Smith told reporters, referring to law enforcement officers employed to work at US schools.

“The shooter quickly realised that if he did not give up that it would end with an officer-involved shooting.

“He gave up, got on the ground, and the deputy took him into custody.”

Sheriff Smith said police did not yet know whether the shooter singled out specific people as targets, adding later that the nine wounded were expected to recover.

The suspected shooter was given a gun by his father last December.

‘Still not safe’

After the suspected shooter was brought to the attention of the FBI, the county sheriff’s office interviewed his father and the then 13-year-old suspect, who denied the threats, before flagging the child to school officials for monitoring.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Chris Hosey said the shooter used an “AR-platform style weapon” and that authorities were investigating how he brought the gun into the school.

Some in the school initially thought it was just another shooter drill, one student told AFP, referring to the exercises common in US schools.

“Everyone just thought it was a fake drill until my teacher said we didn’t get an email,” Alexsandra Romeo said.

“She got us all in a little corner and everyone was just hugging each other, I had some of my friends crying. Until two police officers came in with their guns and told us that this is not a drill and that we’re still not safe.” Another student, 17-year-old Stephanie Folgar, described hearing “loud bangs” and panicking students hiding in the bathrooms and closet.

“It’s scary knowing that that could’ve been you,” she said.

One student told local media that he saw blood on the floor and a body as he was led out of the building by authorities.

The shooting occurred near the town of Winder, about 70 kilometres northeast of Atlanta, the state capital.

Earlier, school authorities were reported to have sent a message to parents saying they were enforcing a “hard lockdown after reports of gunfire.”

After the all-clear was given, parents were invited to the school to be reunited with their children, with long lines of vehicles visible outside.